Being able to dwell on a small kernel of in idea in order to flesh it out and determine the parameters of the idea is important as it allows us to extract new realizations from an exploration that few seldom do. It is by looking at the areas that might be overlooked that form the intersections of various concepts or needs that hold the potential for new revolutionary solutions. In my work as a software engineer and architect of Numeroom.com I encountered many areas in creating my service options that came to existence not from an active and conscious intention on my part to innovate them but rather by natural confluence of functionality provided by the services tying together with the potential for greater efficiency by slight modification of these existing functions or by radical modification through the use of a novel idea. One key insight has enabled the creation of 2 functions that would not exist had the infrastructure for their existence not been previously available in another function. The details of these functions must await the launch of the site for me to reveal the details but suffice it to say that it was by living big in the little place of a single idea that I was able to generate 2 new innovations that would not have existed had I failed to entertain the functionality that gave those innovations the potential for realization. A concrete example of this can be found in the piston of the common internal combustion engine, on its own the piston is a very unoriginal device, a weighted cylindrical object combined at a flexible joint to a fixed shaft. However, within the context of an engine core the piston becomes a lynchpin of the process of internal combustion...without it, it simply would not work...so the question is begged which came first the piston or the engine core. The answer through history is clear, the piston (reciprocating mechanism for transfer of force, the first version of which can be said to be a pile driver which some claims put as being invented 500 years ago. If we want to really be strict a battering ram is a form of human powered piston and those are thousands of years old , as old as siege war fare) predated the core and doubtless the idea for internal combustion could only be given life once the action of a piston could be observed and the details of its behavior lived big in before the grander idea of a combustion block and reciprocally mounted pistons on a crank shaft could be combined to create the internal combustion engine marvel of modern land and sea based transportation. The interesting truth about this act is that the potential for revolution seems fused to what appears to be common and mundane and it is when we fail to dwell on new ways of seeing old things that we miss the opportunity to engineer by living big in little places and potentially sparking innovation.
As the US economy continues to suffer the doldrums of stagnant investment in many industries, belt tightening budgets in many of the largest cities and continuous rounds of lay offs at some of the oldest of corporations, it is little comfort to those suffering through economic problems that what is happening now, has happened before. True, the severity of the downturn might have been different but the common factors of people and businesses being forced to do more with less is the theme of the times. Like environmental shocks to an ecosystem, stresses to the economic system lead to people hunkering down to last the storm, but it is instructive to realize that during the storm, all that idle time in the shelter affords people the ability to solve previous or existing problems. Likewise, economic downturns enable enterprising individuals and corporations the ability to make bold decisions with regard to marketing , sales or product focus that can lead to incredible gains as the economic ...
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